The Scotland Edition

Chapter 4593

A whole new book!

It's been a minute since I've felt even close to being able to unscramble our last few months onto the old blog. And really, I'm not convinced of it making the blindest bit of sense right now either but here we are and so here it is. 

After our mad exit from Peru into the Land of Uncertainty in NYC, there was a whole load of backwardsing and forwardsing about whether we could get to Oman or what was going to happen. An enormous amount of stress and anxiety coupled with E's very understandable meltdowning behaviour (rip his whole life out from under him, transport him to a giant new city and expect no consequences, did ya??) and it was all just getting too much. So I took it upon myself to move heaven and earth and get him the Emergency Travel Document and get us home to Scotland. HUGE big up to the UK Embassy in NYC - that there vice consul did do an amazing job and got the seemingly impossible made possible and to that we got on our plane and flew to London. Although this was only 2.5 months ago, it already feels like several different lives ago...so much has happened in the interim and E has been through so many ups and downs, we could actually have written a book just about these few months since leaving Peru! 

All the parenting everything about adopted children or those with any kind of trauma sing the same song - consistency, routine, structure, safe space, familiarity, etc, etc, etc. If you could put a wee window into the minds of those who suffer with parent guilt, you'd see the mental bashing most of us give ourselves. Add in 2 long haul flights, ripping away everything that's familiar to E, not actually knowing what was going to be next and no real way to communicate what was happening or what would happen next (even if I had known!), and you can maybe get a wee picture of the chaos and doubt and guilt, guilt, guilt that's been whirling around inside this wee head for the last few months. To say it's been difficult is to say the pandemic has been mildly inconvenient for us all. The effect all of this moving around and changing and lack of routine and consistency and familiarity has had on E was pretty devastating for about 10 weeks or so. I really thought I'd broken him. But more about that later...

So we flew to London, still thinking that we would end up going to Oman once I was double vaccinated and had had a minute to stop and get my feet on the ground and have a cup of tea! Onwards to Scotland! My favouritist Plummy Plum came to our rescue and was our Knight in Shining Unicorn Onesie who gave us a home as well as said cup of tea and a hug and love. It was to her safe haven we drove and geared up for our 10 day isolation station...holy actual moly...to those with young children who did the hotel quarantine: you are superhuman. I honestly don't know how ANYONE survived that! Being in a house with a garden was hard. Being in a hotel room with no outdoor access except for scheduled half hour slots??!?! I can't even. I just kept thinking, 'this isn't normal, it will be better when we can get out, this isn't normal, it will be better when we can get out' but poor Plum must have been wondering what in the name of all that was evil in the world she had let herself in for. Stratospheric meltdowns. The craziest waking hours. Stuff everywhere. All the screaming. ALL. THE. SCREAMING. Tough going for all of us. And during all of this, I think it's fair to say I was an anxious, nervous wreck of a human. My end game was always to give E a happy and safe life with a good school, people who understood him and lots of opportunities - most of which felt impossible in Scotland mid-pandemic because we had nowhere to live, I had no job and teaching jobs are almost as hard to get as when I left 12 years ago, no school for him and therefore not really much going in favour of that move which is why I took another contract. To wait it out until the pandemic was over and life had sort of righted itself again. But the horror show of the last, by that stage, 18 months, was just too much and there was absolutely nothing in my being that wanted to go to yet another new country, on another plane, with another nightmare travel situation, to absolutely no support, straight into full time work and having to set up from scratch all over again completely on my own. It felt very much rock and hard place. Choosing between a job, somewhere to live, an income, school for E, easy to find childcare, etc but no friends, no family, no support and no job, nowhere to live, no income, no school, no childcare but an entire ecosystem of support in my own country where life at least felt familiar and 'normal' was a tough, tough call. The stress that making that decision was causing felt overwhelming and completely unmanageable, as well as dealing with all of E's stuff. 

Thanks to Plum for giving a home, the decision was made and ultimately, we stayed. And it was the absolutely right decision to make. It has been more than a person should have to handle, and continues to be but man alive, am I unbelievably delighted to be in the Motherland, with my people, knowing that I can just go and visit those people who love us at the drop of a hat? You can 100% bet your actual bottom dollar, as they say. And that's not even to mention AUTUMN! THE COLOURS!! The glorious, stunning, vivid colours that autumn brings to the trees and the skies are just out of this world. Giving my boy the chance to play in fallen leaves and find conkers and get totally muddy and run free in huge parks WITH FENCES ROUND THEM has made all of the anguish so, so worth it. 

There's so much still to sort and it has been such a difficult path to get as much sorted as we already have but, like my guru Glennon says, we CAN do hard things. We, though. Not I. I need my people. Grateful for you all xxxx